1 LAND OF LEGENDS

Los Angeles, Hollywood

November 5, 2002

Visa expires in 88 days

I had died twice on the way to get here. The first time as a man.

The second time as an artist.

“No return to the old,” JB, my mentor, had said as he sent me

off to Los Angeles, the capital of skateboarding, while pointing

to one of my skateboard photos in black-and-white.

I knew no one in this town, this beast of a city that seemed im-

possible to tame or master. It was my second day after my arrival

in Hollywood. I was lost, alone and afraid. Muscles tight, mind

on high alert, surrounded by threats, both real and unreal. Up

here, you needed eyes in the back of your head. I was trying to

avoid stepping on needles and the zombies roaming the streets.

My mind was misplaced, and so were my wallet and passport,

which I had just lost. My dad had to wire me money.

Was this really a good idea? Had I come here to collapse?

Sunday came, and I met a fellow dreamer, Jeremy, at a church

in another gritty part of LA, Echo Park. It was obvious he had a

vivid past. “I left the church halfway house today.”

13“Halfway house?” I asked, clueless as to what he meant.

“A place for kids who need help to leave the shady parts of life

behind.”

“So you’re also looking for a place to stay?”

I let him stay with me at the hotel in Hollywood behind the

Walk of Fame. I knew it was the right thing to do.

Two days later, a friend back in Sweden found me a couch to

crash on for a couple of days.

“I know you will make it in this town,” Jeremy said as we

parted ways.

“Will you be okay?” I asked concerned when I told him I had

to leave.

“No problems, I know we met for a reason,” he smiled, sliding

on his shades and disappearing into the crowded streets of LA. I left

for East Hollywood and the couch that was to be my new home.

The apartment was packed with street-smart, cool kids in

their mid-twenties.

I sank into the couch, trying to look confident, but I was

clearly different.

One of the kids asked, “So you’re here making a photo book?”

“I’m trying to get hold of some Swedish pro skaters, making a

book with the best,” I replied.

“Show them your photos,” the owner of the apartment said.

I pulled out my portfolio nervously.

“Are all these dudes from Switzerland? I don’t recognize any of

them,” the cool kid said.

“Sweden,” I corrected him. “They are from Sweden,” I said

with my thick Swedish accent.

He quietly analyzed my work and then closed the portfolio.

“You’re in LA, bro. Why don’t you make it with the best

skateboarders in the world?”

14“The best in the world?” I asked. I tried to sound calm, to play

it off as if he was joking.

“Yeah, the legends” he answered.

He wasn’t joking. I sank back quietly into the couch.

“Well, nice to meet you. You got some talent, bro, and remem-

ber, you should do it with all the legends,” the guy said and left.

Early the following day, I zig-zagged my way out of Holly-

wood in a small rental car through the massive grid of streets,

heading for Santa Monica as the sun was peaking over the hori-

zon. There was great light, and then there was California light, a

deep, deep orange that wrapped everything in a warm blanket.

My ninety-day tourist visa was up in eighty-four days. I was

here on a tight budget. The journey to get here had been long.

I had worked the night shift at a factory assembling cellphone

components, taken class photos of rude high school kids and

worked at an amusement park. I was a twenty-three-year-old

working-class Swedish kid ready to pursue the dream.

Forty-five minutes later, I exited the I-10 freeway and entered

Ocean Park, south of Santa Monica. This was the dream desti-

nation for skaters all around the world. This was the hub of the

biggest companies, magazines and the most famous skate spots.

JB had been right. Skateboarding had little room for hesitation,

especially the deeper you traveled into the core. It could be cold

and dark there, a tribe full of tough outcasts, kids being raised

on the streets.

“All it takes is one really good idea,” JB had told me before I

left. I knew he was right, but it was easier said than done. Wasn’t

everyone in this town looking for that one great idea?

I rolled down the window, thinking about the idea of making

a book with all the best. Crisp, salty air from the ocean filled my

nose.

15The legends that changed it all? I thought I had stretched the

bow far when setting out on a journey to make the book with the

best Swedish skaters, but the best in the world?

Outside was the epicenter of skateboarding, Dogtown, home

of the Z-Boys, the most iconic skate crew ever. The area was lo-

cated between South Santa Monica, Venice and Ocean Park. This

part of town had been nicknamed the “Slum by the Sea” in the

1950s. Back then, it started to deteriorate into a slum, with aban-

doned houses. The old amusement park on the pier began falling

into the ocean, like a large, twisted steel arm reaching out into the

waves, ready to grab hold of any surfers who got too close to its

territory. This place still had plenty of grit but was now a cleaner

version of the beach dystopia it had been in the 1970s.

I wasn’t the first dreamer in my family to set out for California.

My great-grandpa was said to have been here ninety years ago,

working on laying down railroad tracks. My grandpa Erik had

been here too, in the 1940s. Both had returned home, broken

dreams in hand.

The neon light from the hotel on the other side of Ocean

Boulevard bounced off my windshield with a warm glow that

seemed to have been matched by a set designer. I parked and got

out at Grand Avenue behind a couple of old RVs that looked like

they were growing into the streets. I was in the cradle of skate-

boarding, walking the neighborhoods of Dogtown.

A tree’s shadow was leaning toward a white wall. A flattened

Coke can lay defeated on the curb while a gaping newspaper

moved slowly across the street, the ocean breeze making it dance.

This town had more rooms than any house could hold—

unlimited opportunities, dark alleys, shady people, shining stars,

bright sunsets, but without knowing your true north here, you

could get lost at sea.

16I walked over to the corner of Pacific Avenue and North

Venice Boulevard. On the other side of the street, a surfer was

running toward the ocean as thousands had done before him.

Across the road was the world’s most famous skate spot, Venice

Beach. If skateboarding had a soul, it would have been located

here—a scarred, harsh one.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, locals had cruised the streets here on

homemade boards with steel wheels. In the ‘70s, the style masters

of wave riding brought their moves from the ocean to land and

backyard pools. In the ‘80s, Hollywood filmed a skateboarding

version of Romeo and Juliet down here with pros like Christian

Hosoi, skateboarding’s brightest shining rock star of the ‘80s,

now locked up in prison. In the ‘90s, the graffiti-painted part,

named Pavilion, was the hub for the world’s best street skaters

until it was bulldozed in the early 2000s. Every generation had

left its mark on this place. I also wanted to leave my mark, even

if it was a small one.

I walked past the boardwalk, avoiding getting hit by people

on rollerblades and strange-looking beach cruisers with high

handlebars. Lifeguard towers were planted on the beach up and

down the coast, like props left behind from a popular TV show.

Out in the waves sat a group of surfers bobbing in the lineup,

waiting for the next set, which never came.

I closed my eyes and prayed, my spirit reaching out to an

open, large hand, like in Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine

Chapel, man reaching for God. I had seen it when I was twelve

years old, the natural world connecting with the supernatural.

Instead of a new car or nice clothes, my parents had used their

savings to let me go to Rome to see the masterpieces.

Rome had their emperors—Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, and

Constantine. Skateboarding had Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Na-

17tas Kaupas. Rome had the Colosseum, Venice had the Pavilion.

The Roman Empire’s culture had spread across the world, just as

skateboarding had. The style formed in Dogtown, in the streets

of LA, by the Hollywood Hills, reached into the fashion houses

and around the world like an emperor’s face stamped on a Ro-

man coin.

I pulled out my camera and shot photos of two tall palm trees.

They had stood there for decades, set in a sea of sand, wrapped

in the rolling fog. Skateboarding had come and gone in popu-

larity and changed in appearance; the trees had witnessed it all. I

looked at them and wondered if they would one day witness my

success. It felt good to be here, so close to the dream.

I stayed in Venice, spending the day in Dogtown until the

sun set and Venice faded into the dark. In the darkness, another

world came to life as unpredictable individuals began roaming

the streets. It was a hard, harsh, beautiful place—a town housing

the poor, the broken, the rich, the dreamers. Everything and

nothing seemed to be out of reach, but to go too big too early

might be a big mistake. To try to find the legends, the best of the

best, some in prison, some mysteriously lost, would be a journey

into the unknown.

I left Venice and drove into the night, praying for direction,

while going upstream in a river of lights. No one would do it for

you in this town.

I parked the car outside the apartment in East Hollywood,

rushed up the stairs, away from the shadows around the corner,

moving into the unknown.

I sat down and grabbed a pen. Focused, I tried to tuck fear

away. I started to form a list of the greatest. I penned down every

name that came to my mind—Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi,

Rodney Mullen. The list kept growing, names that were larger

18than life—Jay Adams, Natas Kaupas, Tom Penny, Steve Caballero,

Tony Alva. I wrote them down as if no one was impossible to reach.

I looked at the names and thought about their impact. Was it

just a piece of paper with a collection of names scribbled down?

A wild, loose dream, or was this something else? The beginning

of something new? Was this the one great idea? Was this what I

had come here to do?